Alex PattersonEdmonton Cat Café
When: Saturday, July 2 (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and Sunday, July 3 (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.)
Where: Latitude 53 (10242-106 Street)
Ticketed event
Edmonton’s first cat café is coming to town this Canada Day long weekend! Though there’s been talk of hosting an animal-centric coffeehouse in the city for some time now, the pop-up Edmonton Cat Café is the inaugural trial for what may someday become a year-round establishment.
Based on a concept that originated in Asia, the café will house more than 10 free-roaming cats and kittens of varying ages over the course of the two-day event. While spending time with the felines, visitors will have access to coffee and other beverages courtesy of Iconoclast Coffee. Other sponsors of the event include locally owned pet supply stores Homes Alive Pets and Tail Blazers, podcast Pet Sounds, and Edmonton-based handmade cat toy company Kitty Kitty Yum Yum.
In holding the event, organizers Sarah Hoyles and Aaron Getz hope to raise awareness for animal welfare organizations that lack brick-and-mortar locations. Both Hoyles and Getz have close personal ties to animal welfare, both growing up around animals — the café project is a culmination of their history with animal shelters and rehoming efforts. A portion of the funds raised from the pop-up will go towards Zoe’s Animal Rescue, a volunteer-run, shelterless Edmonton rescue. The adoptable cats at the café have been selected by Zoe’s Animal Rescue volunteers, who will also be on site to assist in the adoption process should any visitors wish to provide a feline friend with a forever home.
While Asian cat cafés generally house their own live-in kitty tenants, the idea of combining adoptable cats with the café model is a newer, Westernized approach — and one that will hopefully bring needed attention to the animal-oriented organizations and adoptable pets that fly under the radar. “If we can get even one cat adopted because of this event, it’ll be a success,” says café organizer Sarah Hoyles. In the spirit of the café, 4 of the kittens have been named accordingly: Mocha, Espresso, Cappuccino, and Latte.
Each hour, twenty ticket holders are welcomed into a walled area occupied by the cats. The area within the enclosure has been designed to mimic as closely as possible a normal café setting, where great care has been taken to maximize spaciousness and the cats’ comfort and security.
Though tickets for the café are now sold out (the first 200 tickets sold out in less than two days, and a second offering of 60 tickets was snapped up in under two hours), co-organizer Aaron Getz says that anyone who missed out on the ticket sales but still wants to stop by to support the event is welcome to enjoy a cup of coffee outside the cats’ enclosure, on the patio or inside the gallery, where the animals will still be visible.
The tremendously positive response the café has received so far bodes well for the possibility of more and similar events. In the future, the cat café pop-up may become a regular event, Hoyles says, hosted up to four times a year. But for now, the focus is on this coming weekend ― and, of course, the cats!
